


in the woods somewhere

by thepensword



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Ghosts, ao3 stop rearranging the order of my tags challenge, cad sees and speaks to the ghosts that follow the m9 that's it that's all of it, introspective, spoilers through episode 46, switches between past and present tense don't get confused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 22:03:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17292263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepensword/pseuds/thepensword
Summary: Caduceus Clay sees ghosts.





	in the woods somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> _I clutched my life and wished it kept_  
>  _My dearest love_  
>  _I'm not done yet_  
>  _How many years_  
>  _I know I'll bear_  
>  _I found something_  
>  _In the woods somewhere_  
>  ~Hozier

Caduceus Clay saw ghosts.

He always had; as a child, he’d run between gravestones and laughed along with ghostly friends. He’d plucked flowers and held them up before his eyes, and the person from whom it had grown had shaken their head fondly and told him their name. “I wonder what would happen if I made this into tea?” he said once, and Arida Crillane smiled mischievously at the purple blossom that had grown from her grave. “Let’s try it,” she said.

And Caduceus grew, and one by one, his family left. First it was his oldest sister. Then his brother. Then his father, his aunt, his mother, another sister, another brother—

Caduceus Clay was alone in a graveyard, but he was not by himself. “One might think me crazy,” he said as he gathered yellow flowerbuds, “speaking to nothing but air.”

Archibald Turner scoffed at him from atop his gravestone. “I am more than air, young man.”

“Mm,” said Caduceus, and smiled. “I suppose that’s true, isn’t it.”

And so Caduceus was alone, but he had many friends. They were pale and translucent, and no one else could see them, but their names became flowers became tea and Caduceus kept his sanity.

The ghosts left too, one by one by one. They finished up their business. They moved on. One day, Caduceus knew, he would have to move on too.

And move on he did.

 

* * *

 

 

There are many ghosts, in the Sour Nest.

“Oh,” says Caduceus, when first he sees it. Keg sighs loudly beside him and nods, but he knows she sees only the imposing walls and the armed guards. She does not see the vision that greets his sight: the pale blue figures that walk the perimeter, wailing in quiet grief to the snowladen trees.

They’re trapped here, he thinks. Their business is unfinished and they are too damaged to finish it. His heart aches for them, for the wrongness of this place.

So they storm the fortress, and they slaughter the inhabitants. They save people—people who are innocent, who did nothing to deserve this torment. And Caduceus’ ears are full of screams. And Caduceus' vision is filled with flickering blue.

Lorenzo dies.

His body does not leave a spirit behind it.

 

* * *

 

 

He noticed Caleb’s ghosts very quickly, though it was funny; it wasn’t really _them_ that he first saw, but their reflections in his eyes and their weight on his shoulders. Caleb walked funny, all hunched in on himself like he was trying to shrink down to nothing, eyes downcast, lips moving with the repetition of incantations and bits of knowledge he had learned. He wound his fingers through a coil of string and flinched at every movement and though he was so very lonely, Caduceus knew that he was never really ever alone.

They were in a forest. He and Caleb were on watch, but the latter had fallen asleep, slumped against a tree opposite Caduceus. His chest rose and fell, his brow furrowed, and his skin was lit up orange with firelight and ethereal blue by the hands on his shoulders.

“Hello, there,” said Caduceus. The ghosts glanced up at the sound and startled as he met their gazes with a smile.

“Are you talking to us?” said the man. His voice was soft and accented, the same as Caleb’s. Colors are faded, in death, but his eyes were a pale blue that Caduceus was sure was once bright like forget-me-nots. The woman beside him had eyes of faded brown, but her hair shimmered orange like the flickering flames.

Caduceus smiled, and nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Is he your son?”

The woman sighed, and brushed ghostly fingers through Caleb’s hair. Her touch was entirely intangible, and passed through the strands as if she was not there. “Ja.”

“And your tether?”

A nod.

“He is...lost,” said the man. He looked so very sad, and so very tired. It was a look that Caduceus had grown accustomed to seeing, in ghosts. “He thinks he knows what he wants but he’s just so very lost.”

“We should have taken better care of him,” said the woman. “We should have the seen the signs. But alas, we did not, and now he is in so many pieces.”

And together, they looked up. “You’re doing a good job,” said the man. “All of you. He’s coming back together, ja? Like a strong knot.”

Caduceus nodded. His gaze traveled sideways and down, towards a tiny slumbering form in tattered clothes, her green fingers curled up in the fabric of Caleb’s coat. “Yes,” he said. “A knot.”

The woman smiled. She drifted lower, brushing her fingers over Nott’s shoulder. “She is picking up the pieces more than anyone,” she said. “I’m glad—he needed an anchor. I am so grateful for her.”

“But she’s only one person,” said the man. “So it is good that the rest of you are here, as well.” His gaze was sharp across the firepit, dancing embers caught in the air between them like violently spinning stars. “You will take care of them, will you not? You have that look in your eyes.”

“What look?” asked Caduceus, though he thought he knew the answer. His mother had said the same thing to him so many years ago, just before she’d left.

“The look of a caregiver,” said the woman, voice soft.

“Ah,” said Caduceus. “Yes, I will do my best.”

“Danke dir, Caduceus Clay,” said the man. “Thank you.”

And together the three, two ghosts and a gravekeeper, sat and kept watch as the night drew on.

 

* * *

 

 

There is a grave, hastily dug, hastily marked. The vibrant coat remains, hanging from the wooden marker and blowing in the cold wind. Snow is beginning to fall, brilliant white flecks dotting the violet fabric like constellations.

“Ah,” says Caduceus, when he sees it. There’s nothing else to say.

They go to the grave, and he watches. That’s his job, isn’t it? To watch. To listen. To wait. To help, if he can.

“I think he’s still here with us,” says Jester, and her violet eyes are shining with tears.

“I think so too,” says Beau.

And Caduceus watches.

 

* * *

 

 

Fjord’s ghost appeared on the beach.

“Hello,” said Caduceus.

The man had a graying beard and wrinkled eyes. His hair was wiry beneath his wide-brim fisherman’s hat and his coat was battered by wind and sea-spray. He turned towards Caduceus with the gaze of the knowing—this was a man of many secrets, Caduceus thought.

“Ah,” said the man. “Clay, was it?”

Caduceus nodded. “You must be Fjord’s.”

“Yes.”

The waves were loud as they crashed against the beach. Once, many years ago, Caduceus’ sister had handed him a shell and told him to listen. _The shell remembers the ocean,_ she’d said, and he’d been so very fascinated by the notion.

The real ocean was so much louder, but the sentiment lingered. The shell remembers the ocean. The ghost remembers his tether.

Vandren’s eyes were like Fjord’s—swirling with questions and secrets, shifting like the sea.  

“You watch him, alright?” said Vandren, nodding his chin towards the water, where Fjord had gone to join Caleb. His accent was the same, too, and Caduceus had to wonder whether that was intentional. “He’s in far deeper than he seems to realize. Even the best swimmers can drown in a storm.”

“I’ll watch him,” promised Caduceus.

“Good,” said Vandren, and faded in the sea wind.

 

* * *

 

 

“Something will be here,” says Caduceus. He imagines roots and mushrooms winding their way through earth. He imagines the slumbering tiefling down below. He thinks he’d like him, from the way the others talk about him, but he’s never met Molly.

Not yet.

“What did you do?” asks Beau, and her voice cracks around the words.

“I made the earth remember him,” says Caduceus.

 

* * *

 

 

Yasha’s ghost hid from him. She was revealed in a flash of lightning and the whisper of soft, broken words.

“Zuella,” said Caduceus.

The woman turned to him from where she stood at the bow of the ship. “You’re Caduceus.”

“Yes.”

Zuella sighed. There was something in her eyes that was so very sad. “She won’t let me go, will she?”

“Not yet, I don’t think,” agreed Caduceus.

“She’s hurting,” said Zuella. “She needs to let go.”

He said nothing.

“Will you help her?”

This was not something that required thought. Caduceus had been helping for as long as he’d been with the Nein. Caretaker, gravewatcher. He who listens. “Of course.”

There was a shout, and they both watched as Beau slipped from where she’d been attempting to climb the rigging and fell, only to land solidly in Yasha’s arms. There was an expression on their faces, just visible from this distance, something hidden that read like tenderness.

He looked to Zuella. She was smiling, fond and sad. “I’m happy for them,” she said.

“She’ll be alright.”

“I know.”

And they watch.

 

* * *

 

He is there, perhaps, in the suggestions of a presence. Softly jingling jewelry, confident laughter, the impressions of snide comments. He’s there, somewhere, hidden.

Caduceus does not look for him. He watches, of course, but he does not look. He’s always found he sees more that way, in the end.

“Beau, you motherfucker,” says a voice like a faint breeze, like a falling petal in the shape of a smile. Caduceus swirls his tea about in his cup and does not turn his head.

He’s always been so good at waiting.

 

* * *

 

 

The others did not have ghosts.

Not exactly. At least, not in the literal sense. But they were burdened all the same, memories clinging to them like stubborn weeds growing between gravestones. Caduceus prodded at these weeds, thinking perhaps he could dislodge them, slow the crumbling of the stone as the roots dug their way into crevices and cracks.

It was hard, but Caduceus had always been a patient one.

 

* * *

 

 

Jester’s ghost was less of a ghost and more of a god, green-hooded and ethereal. He leaned over her shoulder and murmured something as she sketched in her journal, and she giggled privately at whatever it was he said. There was something like the impression of a smile as he patted her head and then turned, and there was the feeling of gazes meeting despite the lack of visible eyes.

Caduceus nodded his head respectfully, and the Traveler pressed one finger to where his lips might be. A voice without volume, a murmur in his mind— _Thank you for taking care of her._

Jester was not as eternally happy as she pretended to be. Caduceus understood.

“Of course,” said Caduceus.

Fjord gave him a strange look from where he sat beside him at the bar, but Caduceus only closed his eyes and sipped his tea.

 

* * *

 

 

Nott’s ghost revealed itself in the form of a discarded letter, balled up and discarded and thrown into a corner. Caduceus took it into his hands and opened it up, saw a name— _Yeza_ —and thought perhaps there were some things not meant for his eyes. He carefully folded it up and shoved it all the way to the bottom of his bag, not bothering to read its contents.

She’d tell him in time. He would not push her, not before she was ready.

He'd wait. He was so very good at waiting. 

 

* * *

 

 

Beau did not have a ghost, but she was burdened nonetheless. She was bruised fists, pulsing blood, red-hot anger and screams to the unforgiving sky. She was a pot ready to boil over. She was a wild animal lashing out in pain and fear.

Caduceus had cared for animals such as this, in his time at the graveyard. A squirrel just escaped from a hawk. A fox broken free from a trap. A faun separated from its mother. They were not ghosts, like the rest of Caduceus’ company—no, they were startlingly alive, and Caduceus learned to love the feeling of the Wildmother’s grace flowing through his hands and into their very essence, loved the flash of something like gratitude before they scampered out into the woods.

Beau was like that. Frightened, hurt, lashing out. Grateful only in glimpses. Loving too much, underneath the curses and fists and blood. Caduceus watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest where she slept beside the fire and thought she looked awfully young, asleep.

She _was_ young. They all were.

Beau did not have ghosts, but she carried her demons with her and brandished them like weapons. But underneath, her caring burned fiercer than any anger ever could.

Caduceus had always been practiced in seeing the things that others could not.

 

* * *

 

 

There is a room.

It is not a remarkable room; in fact, it is wholly unremarkable. It sits on the top floor of an inn, rundown and typical, with two thin beds and two drafty windows. It is cold in this room, and not entirely clean, but the remarkable thing is not the room but the people within.

There is someone watching. And there is someone else, watching the someone.

“Ah,” says Caduceus. “I thought I sensed your presence.”

“Ha,” says the spirit formerly known as Mollymauk Tealeaf. “I _knew_ you could see ghosts.”

And they watched each other as their companions slumbered.

“They miss you,” says Caduceus, after a while. Molly nods his head and sighs with breathless lungs, flickering out of sight and reappearing by Caduceus’ side, knees tucked up to his chest and back pressed against the bedframe. The beds were pushed together and into a corner last night, so that everyone could pile on with less danger of someone taking a tumble. It is a tangle of blankets and bodies. It is warm and it is comfortable and it feels like home.

“I know,” says Molly. “But you’re taking good care of them.”

Caduceus blinks his eyes mildly. “Am I?”

“Do you think you’re not?”

“I try my best,” says Caduceus. “But with this bunch, sometimes I fear it’s not enough.”

“Ah,” says Molly. “Right.”

The thing about ghosts is they don’t give off heat and they don’t possess mass. Nevertheless, something about Molly feels solid, in a way that Caduceus has never felt before. “You’re not quite finished here, are you?” he says. He does not know what he hopes for the answer to be.

Molly seems to contemplate this for a moment. Even in death, translucent and glowing faintly blue, he cuts a colorful figure, all purple and red and blue and green and gold. His horns hang with jewelry that jingles softly with each turn of his head, reminiscent of the wind chimes Caduceus’ aunt had hung from the roof one summer. “No,” says Molly at last. “I don’t think I am.”

Caduceus nods. “Take your time. I will watch them until you’re ready.”

A quiet smile. A fond shake of the head. The chiming of jewelry. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

They sit; the gravekeeper and the ghost, watching their family slumber. And when the rays of the sun seep through the dusty windows as morning breaks, Mollymauk Tealeaf fades away.

“I’ll watch them,” promises Caduceus once more to the not-quite empty air. There is a hint of a smile, and then he is alone.

“Mmm,” grunts Beau. “'Deuce, why are you up?”

Well, not quite alone. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> listen i just. really love cow dad
> 
> thank you for reading! if you liked it, drop a comment or visit my [tungle](https://thepensword.tumblr.com)


End file.
